Most real estate agents in New York get paid through commissions. Commissions are typically calculated as a percentage of a property’s sale price, though some brokerages will charge a flat fee. The average agent commission rate nationwide is 5.8% of the home sale price, according to HomeLight’s real estate transaction data of thousands of home sales each year. But how does that compare to the average real estate commission rate in New York?
While first-time homebuyers may balk at a Realtor’s fee when they first calculate it, Realtors do a lot of work to help sell your house. Anthony Butera runs a real estate team in Rochester, New York, that tracks the hours spent on each sale. He says that his team spends anywhere from 35 to 50 hours working with a buyer or seller. “Some deals are really complicated, some are messy, some die, and you start from scratch,” he says.
In this post, we’ll help you determine how much commission you might pay on your New York home sale, and what options are available to earn the highest proceeds possible.
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What’s the average real estate commission in New York?
According to Butera, who sells homes 73% faster than the average Rochester agent, you can expect to pay between 2.85% in seller’s agent commissions when selling a home in New York, and roughly the same amount to the buyer’s agent. This makes the average total agent commission in New York about 5.7%. You’ll find some variation based on location within the state.
On a property worth the current median home sale prices in New York, which ranges from a low of $93,250 in Allegheny County to a high of $770,000 in Westchester County, that amounts to $5,315–$43,890 in commission costs.
Real estate commissions do vary depending on where you’re home shopping. Butera points out that “Because our average sales price in upstate NY is still below the national average, our commissions are not contested as often as they are downstate. In highly competitive markets with a high average sales price, that commission drops.”
Here’s a breakdown of how much you might pay in real estate commissions based on local commission data and what a typical home sells for in six of the largest cities in New York:
| City | Median home price | Avg. commission rate | Typical commission |
| New York City | $574,986 | 5.00% | $28,749 |
| Buffalo | $350,000 | 5.80% | $20,300 |
| Yonkers | $350,000 | 5.80% | $20,300 |
| Rochester | $153,897 | 6.00% | $9,234 |
| Syracuse | $147,683 | 4.97% | $7,340 |
| Albany | $227,300 | 4.97% | $11,297 |
Median home prices calculated from multiple public sales data sources.
HomeLight gathers agent commission data from cities throughout the U.S. To see if we have commission rates for your city, try our Agent Commissions Calculator. You might also be interested in our Net Proceeds Calculator and Home Value Estimator.
Still curious about commission rates in New York? Here are the answers to common questions about real estate agent commissions:
Who pays real estate commission fees?
The commission is typically paid by the home seller, and the seller’s agent will then split the commission with the buyer’s agent.
But as Butera explains, while this is the nationwide standard, most sellers take the commission costs into account when setting the list price and accepting an offer. “It’s going to be fixed into the deal somehow, whether it’s through a concession the sellers have to provide the buyer” or the price.
Flat fee listing agents will put a home on the MLS for a flat fee, but they typically do not provide any other crucial services, such as marketing, scheduling showings, negotiating, or seeing the deal through to completion.